


A Wolf by the Ear

by Anthemyst



Series: Dangerous Beings [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Explicit Language, F/M, Some fairly unsettling power dynamics, it's rude, kids don't kidnap a girl just because you like her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthemyst/pseuds/Anthemyst
Summary: Nathalie Sancoeur never wanted a soulmate, and she'd stopped checking for the mark of one years ago. The last thing she'd ever expected was Paris' most feared supervillain appearing in her office, claiming to have found her name on his skin. Now she's got to balance the affections of a monster against his dangerous and paranoid fear that she'll read the name on her back and expose his identity to the world.Good thing Nathalie excels at balancing acts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poppicock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppicock/gifts).



Prologue

 

Nathalie Sancoeur had never wanted a soulmate. Unlike everyone else she’d ever known, she didn’t grow up eagerly awaiting the day she looked in the mirror and found the signature of her One True Love looking back at her. Hell, Nathalie didn’t even like the _idea_ of soulmates. Her parents had been soulmates, after all, and it hadn't seemed to have done their brief marriage any favors. Soulmates were a lazy answer to a difficult question, and Nathalie had never been one for the easy or lazy approach. Besides, they were an answer to a question Nathalie had no interest in asking. Nathalie had seen far too many people put their lives on hold, waiting for something that statistically was unlikely to ever appear. Waiting to be told how to live their lives. Nathalie had no intention of ever letting anyone, or anything, tell her how to live her life.

Nathalie was twenty-five, the first night she didn't check for a mark. The idea came to her out of the blue. She’d never wanted a soulmate, but she’d always checked anyway. The idea of not checking was absurd. When Nathalie went to bed that night, the skin between her shoulderblades totally unexamined, it felt like a dangerous, reckless decision. But it also felt liberating. Nathalie slept like a baby that night. She raced to the mirror and checked the next morning, then felt embarrassed at herself when she saw her blank skin in the mirror like always. She resumed checking for the next three nights, then skipped again. That time she managed to go a whole week without checking.

After that, she never looked again.

 

* * *

 

Nathalie was two hours deep into arranging the schedules for each and every model for the next quarter, completely in the zone and totally unaware of the world outside of her task, when she suddenly realized she could hear breathing behind her. She whirled her chair around quickly, and looked up into the deep blue eyes of the man who’d spent the last year terrorizing her city.

“Miss Sancoeur,” Hawkmoth said, with an exaggerated graciousness. “I believe you and I have something to discuss.”

Nathalie’s eyes flashed towards her desk phone, then back up at the villain. He followed the line of her gaze and smirked. “I think we both know _that_ won’t work,” he said, his voice amused but almost chiding as well. Like he was disappointed in her. The nerve of him.

In the space of Nathalie’s hesitation, Hawkmoth offered her his hand. “May I?” Because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, Nathalie accepted his help and got to her feet.

As she rose, the office faded around her. Before she had time to react, she was in a large, empty room. There was only one window, far too high to reach, and no exits that she could see. As she looked around her, she realized that above her head were swarms of small white butterflies.

“You tricked me,” Nathalie said, not bothering to mask her annoyance.

“As though it matters?” Hawkmoth replied. “I would have taken you here either way. We can hardly have a free discussion at your place of work.”

“What on earth could you possibly have to discuss with me?” Nathalie asked.

The villain raised an eyebrow. “You don't think we have anything to discuss?”

“Oh, there's plenty to discuss, if you’re open to suggestions. We could discuss your reign of terror, or your repeated insistence on putting the people of this city in danger-”

“Nobody’s been hurt,” Hawkmoth interrupted defensively. “And nobody’s going to be hurt. If I acquired the Ladybug Miraculous, you have my word I'd undo all the damage I've caused, just as she would.”

 _Good Lord_ , Nathalie thought. _He actually cares what I think of him_. Somehow, that thought was far more terrifying than her kidnapping.

“Nobody’s been _physically_ hurt, perhaps,” Nathalie replied, not giving any ground. “But not all wounds are physical. You can't honestly think turning people into villains against their will has no effect whatsoever?”

Hawkmoth let out a frustrated sigh. “We’re getting off-topic,” he said, annoyed. “You know what I brought you here to discuss.”

“I haven't the faintest idea,” Nathalie replied, deadpan.

“You-” he chuckled. “You really are heartless, aren't you? That should make this impossible, and yet… perhaps it makes a twisted kind of sense. It's certainly refreshing, I must admit, after dealing with so many heightened emotions day in and day out, to be in the presence of a woman such as yourself.” He took a step closer, and Nathalie’s cool, steady heartbeat quickened, just a bit. Hawkmoth smiled.

“Tell me why I'm here,” Nathalie demanded, stepping back.

Hawkmoth shrugged. “I hadn't pegged you for the type to play coy, but if you insist. You're here because your signature appeared on my skin last week. Quite a shock, I assure you, though I imagine yours was far greater. Waking up to find the name of Paris’ most feared supervillain in over half a century scrawled across your back.” He closed the distance between them and looked down at her. “You simply must tell me every single thing that went through your mind in that moment, Nathalie,” he said.

Nathalie’s veins ran ice cold. For a moment, she couldn't think at all, and then her brain went into overdrive. _Focus, figure this out, you can use this to your advantage, it's your life if you don't._

“You're taking an awful risk,” Nathalie said, as calmly as if the matter were wholly academic. “What if it was your real name that appeared? Then I'd know who you were. I could have you arrested, defeated. I'd be a hero.”

Hawkmoth shook his head. “I checked,” he said, and Nathalie’s cheeks turned slightly pink as she wondered what on earth _that_ could mean. “Not like that,” he added, amused at her embarrassment. “I was in your presence earlier this week, and I detected nothing of note in your emotions towards me. You did not read my civilian name on your skin, of that I am sure.”

Nathalie tried to remember everyone she’d been in contact with in the past week, but quickly realized the number was far too high to be of any use. Damned Fashion Week.

“Very well,” she said cooly. “You caught me, I haven't read your real name on my back. I was frightened at first, of course, when I read the name ‘Hawkmoth’, but after a few days I must confess the idea began to have a certain odd allure to it, despite-”

“You're lying,” Hawkmoth interrupted, suddenly angry. “Why?”

Nathalie raised an eyebrow. She had the best poker face of anyone she’d ever met, and a poker face wasn't much use if it broke every time one was accused of bluffing. “Excuse me?” she asked, sounding ever so slightly offended.

“You can't lie to me, Nathalie,” Hawkmoth told her. “I can detect deception as easily as any other emotion. It doesn't matter how well you conceal your true feelings from everyone else in the world. I'll always know.”

“Fine,” Nathalie said, thinking fast. “I was simply telling you what I thought you wanted to hear.”

“Why?”

“Because you're terrifying,” she said, her vocie dripping sarcasm, “why else?” Hawkmoth seemed to appreciate her attitude at least, even if he could tell it was masking some degree of true fear.

“Well, now you know better,” he said. “Tell me how you really felt.”

Damn.

“I'd rather not discuss it.”

Hawkmoth grinned. “I suppose you think you're in a position to… to…” he frowned. “You're still hiding something,” he said. “What?”

God _fucking_ damn it.

“Tell me _now_ ,” he said, as he held an open palm out and summoned one of the dozens of white butterflies to it, “or I’ll-”

“I didn't,” Nathalie said in a rush, hating herself for not being able to think of a way out of this.

“Didn't _what_?”

“Didn't read your name on my back.”

“That's impossible,” Hawkmoth said, and now he was starting to get really worked up. “The marks always appear in sync.”

“I didn't say it wasn't there,” Nathalie said. “I said I didn't read it. I didn't check.”

And there it was. There was no unsaying it, no saving herself now.

For a good ten seconds, Hawkmoth was speechless. “Everybody checks,” he finally said. “Every day. Nobody even thinks about it. It's just part of a routine. Brush your teeth, get undressed, check for a mark, go to bed. That's what people _do_.”

“I don't. I can't say I have much esteem for the whole thing, frankly.” Nathalie could see on his face, the moment Hawkmoth realized just how big a mistake he’d made. Her final desperate hope, that he wouldn't put it together, was extinguished.

“You’ll check now, I suppose,” he said matter-of-factly.

“It certainly seems like the sensible thing to do,” Nathalie agreed.

“And you'll read my name. And if it's my civilian name, you'll call the police.”

Nathalie folded her arms across her chest. “Can you think of a compelling reason why I shouldn't?”

Hawkmoth considered this silently for a moment, his fingers curling nervously around his cane. “Then I suppose I have no compelling reason to allow you to leave,” he finally said. It was better than Nathalie had feared-she’d rather be a prisoner than dead, after all-but Nathalie’s heart sank in her chest all the same. Had he felt it? And if so, had it meant anything to him?

“Unless,” Hawkmoth added, “you'd allow me to check for myself. If it's my villain name, there shouldn't be any problem.”

Well. That was interesting. If that wasn't a situation Nathalie could take advantage of, what was?

Silently, Nathalie began to shrug off her blazer. She folded it neatly, then bent down gracefully and placed it on the floor. The location would have driven her mad if the room hadn't been completely devoid of anywhere else to put the damn thing. As she straightened back up, she was pleased to see her actions were having their desired effect.

Still not speaking, Nathalie crossed her arms, grabbed the bottom of her shirt, and began to pull up.

“That’s not-if you're not comfortable, you don't need to-”

Freezing in place, her midriff already bared, Nathalie raised an eyebrow. “Can it be the supervillain is a gentleman?” she asked wryly.

“I don't want to impose upon you any more than necessary,” Hawkmoth replied, steadying his voice.

“Well, it’s necessary. This turtleneck is too tight and too high to simply pull the collar down. If you're going to check, it has to come off.” Nathalie pulled the shirt over her head. It came off with some difficulty, pulling out large amounts of static-filled hair from her bun, sending several bobby pins clattering to the floor. The noise echoed loudly in the large, empty room. Nathalie didn't bother to fold the shirt. She simply pulled it off her arms and let it fall. She looked Hawkmoth dead in the eyes.

“Well?”

Hawkmoth looked Nathalie up and down, not bothering to hide that he was doing it, and not bothering to hide the fact that he liked what he saw. He walked towards her, not saying a word, not breaking eye contact. He brushed against her as he walked around to her back, and Nathalie shivered at the slight breeze against her bare torso.

Hawkmoth was silent for a moment, and Nathalie knew. She could feel her window of freedom closing rapidly as he took a breath. “It's my civ-”

Nathalie jabbed her elbow up as quickly and as powerfully as she could, right at the villain’s larynx. Then, while he was still recovering, she whirled around and grabbed the Miraculous off his chest.

Or, well, that was the plan, anyway. As it turned out, the villain had the same superhuman reflexes as his heroic counterparts. He easily caught Nathalie’s elbow, then grabbed her other one and pinned them together behind her back. Nathalie briefly considered attempting to stamp her foot down on his, but she suspected none of her self-defense training from college would be of any use against the man. Besides, she was already feeling embarrassed enough.

“My, my,” Hawkmoth said softly, leaning in so he was right next to her ear, “you are the hero type after all. It seems I don't know you nearly as well as I thought. I'd assumed you were far too practical for heroics.”

“There is nothing impractical,” Nathalie said defensively, doing her best not to struggle, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her helplessness, “about wanting to defeat you. Do you have any idea how many meetings I've had to reschedule this year thanks to your nonsense? You have been _extremely_ inconvenient for me.”

For some reason, this seemed to amuse him greatly. “Is that so?” he asked. “My apologies.”

“Unless your _apologies_ can magically turn into a door that leads me out of this nightmare, they're quite useless to me.”

Hawkmoth released her, and Nathalie quickly stepped away from him before turning around. He looked torn, but resolute. “I can't let you leave,” he repeated.

“If you try to keep me here,” she said, her voice level, “I will make your life a living hell, soulmate or no. In fact, I find myself wondering if being your soulmate will actually make it _easier_ to torment you. That was certainly the case for my parents.”

“If I let you leave you'll make my life a living hell anyway,” Hawkmoth replied. “Trust me. I would not fare well in maximum security prison.” He shrugged. “So since it seems I am damned either way, I may as well pick the hell that comes with the pleasure of your company.”

They were at an impasse, it was as simple as that. Right now, Hawkmoth had all the power. And power was what drove him more than anything, Nathalie suspected. She couldn't imagine him giving it up for anything.

And yet… he had approached her. Well, he'd kidnapped her, which Nathalie supposed was what passed for romance among supervillains. He wasn't indifferent to the name written across his back. It meant _something_ to him that it was there, though Heaven knew what, exactly.

Nathalie sighed, removed her glasses, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I won't look,” she muttered.

“What?”

“You heard me. Let me go and I won't check. I'll be sure nobody else sees it, too.” She put her glasses back on and looked at the villain, her gaze steady.

Hawkmoth blinked, speechless. “How can I trust you?” he asked.

“You seemed awfully sure of your ability to detect lies earlier,” Nathalie pointed out. “If I find out that was an act, I shall be extremely put out with myself.”

“Your offer is sincere at the moment, I’ll grant,” Hawkmoth said. “But how can I trust that curiosity won't overwhelm you later?”

Nathalie kept her gaze cool. “I haven't looked in over ten years,” she said, and his eyes widened in shock. “Believe me, if anyone can resist that kind of temptation, it's me.”

“I see,” Hawkmoth replied. He considered her offer. “I would be at your mercy.”

“That seems fair, considering I'm currently at yours.”

“I don't like letting others have power over me.”

“Not ever?” Nathalie asked. “That's a shame. I suppose we're not so compatible after all.” Was that a blush? It was impossible to tell, with that ridiculous head covering of his.

“I can sense emotions from anywhere in the city,” he warned. “I will continue to keep an eye on yours. If I get even the slightest indication that you're becoming tempted, or that you're changing your mind, you'll be back here in the blink of an eye.”

Nathalie shrugged, doing her best to seem unaffected by this threat. “Then I won't change it,” she replied.

Hawkmoth nodded. “In that case, I accept your generous offer. I shall escort you… would you prefer to go home, or back to work?”

Nathalie tried not to visibly exhale in relief, even though she knew he could detect it anyway. “Back to work?” she repeated sardonically. “You’d like me to reappear in the middle of Agreste Manor, in front of my boss and his son, out of thin air, disheveled and shirtless? In the company of the city’s most feared supervillain in over half a century?” Her voice got sarcastic at the end, as she threw his self-description back at him. “I'll pass.”

Again he seemed amused. “Well, I would certainly hate to embarrass you in front of your boss,” he said. “Your apartment it is.” He held out a gloved hand, and after a mere half-second of hesitation Nathalie placed hers gently within it. The room about them faded, and Nathalie was back in her apartment. Her bedroom, specifically.

“Rather presumptuous of you,” Nathalie commented, looking at her immaculately made bed. Hawkmoth grinned.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, disappearing into her bathroom, then emerging a few seconds later holding her giant oval mirror in one hand as though it weighed nothing, “I think I’ll take this with me. Just to make it easier on you, to resist temptation.”

“Have you _seen_ my hairstyle?” Nathalie asked, her voice ice cold. “You think something that flawless just happens organically?”

“Do your hair in front of another mirror,” he replied, unfazed. “I’d simply prefer it if you didn’t have one right where you exit the shower every morning, when all it would take is a split-second of weakness to check. I think that’s reasonable.”

Nathalie let out a sharp laugh. “Yes, out of all the adjectives in the world to choose from, ‘reasonable’ certainly fits you best.” She rolled her eyes. “Fine, take it. You’ve already got my shirt, my favorite blazer, and at least five bobby pins. With the mirror, all you need are a few grainy photographs taken without my knowledge and you’ve got all the items necessary for a shrine.”

Hawkmoth grinned. There was something truly infuriating about how he kept doing that. “I’ll return the blazer,” he promised. “Tonight, if you like. We should discuss this further. Leave your window open if you’re open to it, and I’ll take it as an invitation.” He bowed, and was gone.

Nathalie counted to ten in her head; when the villain didn’t reappear, she finally let herself sink onto her bed, her knees buckling slightly as she did so.

The identity of the man terrorizing her city on a near-daily basis was written on her back. It gave her a power over him-or might have, except it terrified him and that made him more dangerous to her than he was to anybody else in the city. Nathalie couldn’t even begin to let herself consider the implications of why his name had appeared on _her_ back, of all places-she just wanted to get out of this, with some semblance of a normal life intact at the end of it. But for now she was locked in a holding pattern with a supervillain torn between wanting her and wanting her silenced. Normal might as well have been on the moon for how far away it was right now.

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

Nathalie left her window open, and Hawkmoth returned the blazer that night. And the shirt, and several bobby pins.

“I couldn’t understand it, when I approached you last week and you looked at me as though nothing were different,” Hawkmoth told her, once she’d agreed to hear what he had to say. He paced on the far side of her living room as she watched him, silent. “Naturally I expected you to _act_ as though nothing were different, at least until we had a chance to discuss it privately, but your feelings towards me were entirely unaffected. Of course I can’t claim to know what those feelings _should_ have been. It kept me up all night, wondering if you would be elated, or intimidated, or disgusted. But your total indifference, that was impossible. I simply couldn’t figure it out. And then it occurred to me that I am a man with two names.”

Seated on her small, stiff couch, Nathalie ran a finger idly along the rim of the glass of wine she’d immediately poured upon her soulmate’s arrival. The glass sang out softly, a low, rich note, and it buzzed against the tip of her finger. “Sign many documents as Hawkmoth, do you?” she asked.

Hawkmoth tilted his head, conceding her point. “I do not,” he admitted. “But I thought perhaps this was the only version of me you were suited to.”

“You were wrong.”

“Yes.”

“And yet, evidently, this is the only version of you I get.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Nathalie took a large sip of wine. “Your mistake has quite likely ruined my life, you know,” she said unemotionally. Hawkmoth stiffened defensively.

“Who doesn’t _check_?” he asked, indignant. “How could I have possibly foreseen that _that_ was the explanation for your indifference?”

“Do you know what I would have done, if I had read your name? If something had possessed me to check that morning?” Hawkmoth shook his head gently. “I would have gotten dressed, put my hair up, gone to work, and done my job. And I would have done that the next day, and the next, and the next. I would have lived my life exactly as I was planning on living it without a mark. I would have been indifferent either way.”

Hawkmoth stopped pacing and looked at her. “That is quite the rare attitude, Miss Sancoeur.”

Nathalie shrugged. “If you really are my soulmate,” she said, “then on some level, you must understand it.”

“Explain it to me, and maybe I will.”

“It’s simple. I don’t like being told how to feel.”

Hawkmoth nodded. “That I understand,” he said, “and yet, it never occurred to me to stop checking. Is that really all there is to it, for you?”

Nathalie paused, unsure of how much she wanted to reveal at once. “My parents were soulmates,” she finally said. “They divorced when I was seven.”

Hawkmoth didn’t try to mask his shock. “I’ve heard of soulmate divorces, of course, but I’ve never personally known of one,” he replied. He crossed the room and stood next to Nathalie, looking down at her. “I have a rather difficult relationship with my parents,” he told her.

“Shocking,” Nathalie said sarcastically, practically rolling her eyes.

“I just mean, it is something we have in common.”

“No, it isn’t,” Nathalie said. “I have an excellent relationship with both my parents. I hold them in high regard. It is their marriage I have disdain for, and that is quite a different thing. People are more than the sum of their romantic relationships. It… it takes a lot of bravery, to get a divorce, when you have one of these marks. Nobody wants to believe the marks might be wrong. Nobody wants to believe they might not be enough. People were so angry with my parents, like it was something they were doing everyone else and not each other. But they did it anyway.” Nathalie laughed suddenly. “Good Lord, imagine if you’d been right about my mark. Imagine how people would react if they heard it was possible to wake up one morning with a supervillain’s name on your back. I almost wish you had been, just to see how they rationalized _that_.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be difficult,” Hawkmoth replied, unamused. “They would simply tell themselves you were a monster. Like me.”

Nathalie sobered. “Yes,” she agreed, “I suppose they would.” Nathalie finished her glass of wine in one final gulp, set it down on her coffee table, and began carefully pulling her bobby pins out one by one.

“Should I go?” Hawkmoth asked. “I understand, if you’d prefer to keep these interactions short-”

“I would not,” Nathalie interrupted. She pulled out the last pin, and her hair fell about her shoulders as she laid them out on the table, adding them to the few that Hawkmoth had returned. “Twenty-nine,” she said after a moment. “I had thirty this morning.”

“I’m sure it will turn up,” Hawkmoth replied.

Nathalie shrugged, fighting the urge to grin to herself. “They disappear all the time,” she said dismissively. “I’m always buying more.” Nathalie stood up abruptly and took a step towards Hawkmoth. Now she was close enough that he could touch her, and it was mere seconds before he was taking advantage of this fact, putting a hand to her waist, drawing her closer.

“Should I go?” Hawkmoth asked again, and this time there was a faint grin accompanying the question. He knew full well what her answer would be.

“Stay,” Nathalie whispered, and now his grin was overt.

“Have you come around, then?” Hawkmoth asked. “That was much faster than I’d dared hoped, based on your emotional state earlier today.”

“Oh,” Nathalie shrugged again, “I find I can only be frightened for my life for so long before I grow tired of the emotion.”

Hawkmoth leaned in. “Do you grow tired of all emotions so quickly?” he asked softly.

“That depends,” she replied, “on whether others are making them interesting for me or not.”

In response, Hawkmoth slid a hand behind Nathalie’s head and pulled her into a kiss. It was soft at first, until Nathalie leaned in.

 _Never forget that he feels what you feel_ , she thought to herself, even as she lightly bit his bottom lip. _On some level this has to be real, at least a little, if it’s going to be convincing._

Feeling something for the villain, it turned out, was easier than Nathalie had anticipated. Hawkmoth’s empathy actually helped, she slowly realized, as he started to kiss his way down her neck. It gave him instant feedback on everything he did. Every kiss, every caress, he knew which ones were hits and which were misses. He quickly learned exactly where and how to touch her for maximum effect.

Nathalie broke away after a few minutes, an action which confused Hawkmoth as it didn’t match at all with her current emotions, until she pulled him along after her, towards her bedroom.

“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

“If the universe is going to play the biggest cosmic prank imaginable by saddling me with _you_ of all people,” Nathalie said impatiently, “I am damn well going to get something out of it before it ruins my life completely.”

 

* * *

 

The main problem with trying to seduce an empath, of course, was that even if your attraction was genuine, he’d still know from the start your motivations were ulterior.

“It seems you’re hoping I’ll fall madly in love with you,” Hawkmoth said one night in bed, after they’d thoroughly exhausted one another. His arm was around her, and he sounded amused at the idea. “That I’ll give all this up for you.”

Nathalie snorted. “As though you’re not hoping I fall madly in love with you and, what, become your faithful right hand in your quest for world domination?”

“The thought does appeal,” Hawkmoth murmured. “I wonder which of us will prevail?”

“It’s hardly a fair competition,” Nathalie replied. “I had a head start.”

“You think I’ve already begun to fall madly in love with you?”

“No. I just think you’re already mad.” Hawkmoth laughed.

The other problem, which Nathalie had not foreseen, was how goddamn _paranoid_ the man was. He’d let Nathalie back into the world with his name on her back, and for some reason Nathalie had assumed that meant he wasn’t terribly careful. She was wrong.

He only ever appeared hours after sunset. The costume was magic and wouldn’t come off unless he dropped the transformation, which was a level of vulnerability that Hawkmoth was ill-equipped to handle. He insisted on both total darkness throughout the room _and_ a blindfold for Nathalie, which she might have actually liked if he wasn’t constantly readjusting it, making sure it lay perfectly over her eyes, as though she could have seen anything even if it had gone askew.

Nathalie tried to adjust, tried to accommodate. She ran her fingers over him, trying to memorize every inch of his body in the dark. But that, too, set him off. She made the mistake of running her hands over his face one night, her fingertips tracing the line of his jaw, his nose, his brow, lightly brushing the lids of his eyes, when he grabbed her hands and roughly pushed them away.

“What-” But he was already off of her, off the bed, she heard him transform and an instant later the sound of his heavy breathing abruptly disappeared. Nathalie groaned in frustration, pushing her blindfold off and reaching over to her nightstand for the lamp. She looked around her empty bedroom for a moment, then sighed and shut the light back off. It was difficult to sleep after that. Difficult even for Nathalie to put her desires, so close to having been fulfilled, out of her mind.

Hawkmoth didn’t return for almost a week, and at first Nathalie was in no mood for his visit.

“I don’t appreciate being teased,” she snapped at him as he appeared in her bedroom close to midnight. She stayed in bed, tilting her book down to glare at him over the top of it.

“And I don’t appreciate your transparent attempts to figure out what I look like,” Hawkmoth retorted. He held up the usual blindfold, along with an additional strip of silk. “If I can’t trust you to keep your hands where they belong-”

“Good Lord, is that all?” Nathalie asked, closing her book and putting it aside. “And it took you a week to work up the nerve to come back here with that simple request?” She leaned over and shut her bedroom light off. A moment later she felt the mask fixed against her eyes, and the silk wrapped around her wrists.

Nathalie didn’t mind being restrained-quite the contrary, actually-but her lover’s attitude about the whole thing quickly became irritating. It was ostensibly for his peace of mind, and yet he simply became more tense, worried and distracted the more precautions and restrictions he came up with to protect his identity. After another week, Nathalie finally decided she’d had enough.

“No,” she said firmly, as Hawkmoth moved towards her. She grabbed the items from his hand. “Not like this, not anymore. You have entirely too many trust issues for a man who can read emotions, and I’m through catering to them, do you understand me?”

Hawkmoth raised an eyebrow. “Then I’ll leave,” he said.

“Do you know what your problem is?” Nathalie asked, ignoring his ultimatum. She calmly placed the blindfold over her eyes, but the silk she simply wound about her fingers idly. She reached for the wall, for the place she knew by heart, and flipped the switch, plunging the room into darkness.

“I do not.”

Nathalie went up on her toes, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder to steady herself as she rose as high as she could in order to speak directly into his ear. “You always have to be in control, don’t you?” she murmured.

“That’s hardly new information.”

“Oh, that’s not your problem,” Nathalie continued. “Your problem is that you’re _terrible_ at it. Being in control doesn’t agree with you at all.” Hawkmoth tensed as he felt a brush of silk against his wrists, but he didn’t pull away and Nathalie continued to wind the strip around them, occasionally pulling it tight. It was almost intimidating, how efficiently she could do that without the use of her sight.

As she tied the ends of silk together, Nathalie pushed Hawkmoth firmly back on the bed. For a moment she thought he might simply disappear into thin air, but then she heard the soft noise of his body hitting her mattress, the faint sparking noise that accompanied his transformation drop. Nathalie held herself back for a few seconds, allowing him to lie there waiting, before joining him.

God, this was almost _too_ easy.

 

* * *

 

“Adrien?” Nathalie called out as she made her way upstairs. “Adrien, we’re going to be late for your photo shoot, we need to go now.” She reached his bedroom, and was surprised to discover him both still asleep and still wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before. “Adrien?”

Adrien awoke with a start. “It’s Saturday,” he said in a rush, still disoriented.

“You have a photo shoot,” Nathalie reminded him.

“Jeez, sorry Nat, I’ll-” Adrien was already halfway across the room, grabbing a clean shirt as he made his way into his private bathroom. In his haste he failed to shut the door at first, and Nathalie caught a glimpse of him removing his shirt and turning around in the mirror, quickly glancing at his back. Nathalie turned around, embarrassed at herself, and waited patiently for her charge to finish getting ready.

“Sorry about that,” Adrien said, as he made his way back over to her, now ready to go. “I was, um… out with friends last night. Don’t tell Father?”

“I won’t,” Nathalie promised him as they made their way down the hall, and Adrien grinned appreciatively. “You’re a little young to be checking for a mark, aren’t you?” she asked impulsively. Instantly, she regretted it. She’d never said anything so personal to Adrien before. She loved the boy, of course she did, but she wasn’t his mother and it wasn’t her place to be prying into these natural stages of development.

Adrien’s cheeks flushed. “People have gotten them younger,” he said, which was technically true, although it was quite rare for a mark to appear before age twenty. Nathalie nodded and tried to drop the subject, but Adrien actually seemed to appreciate her opening the door to a more personal conversation for once. “When did you start checking?” he asked.

“Oh… I suppose I was about your age, actually,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s not so young after all.”

“Were you looking for a specific name?” Adrien asked, and it was clear why he was asking. Nathalie gave up.

“I wasn’t,” she told him. “You?” Adrien blushed again. “How long have you known her?”

“A year,” he said. That made sense, Nathalie supposed, it was when he’d begun going to school, having friends. “The record’s ten, right?”

“Longer, I think.” There was no relationship between how long two soulmates might know each other and when their marks might appear. People had woken up to find names they’d never heard before on their backs, and they’d woken to find names of friends they’d had for years. There were frustratingly few rules surrounding the marks.

“Are you still not looking for a specific name?” Adrien asked.

“I’m not looking at all,” Nathalie replied idly, in a moment that later she would think of as pure, unadulterated idiocy.

Adrien’s jaw dropped. “You’re not _looking_?” he asked, incredulous. “When was the last time you checked?”

“Many years ago,” Nathalie told him. “It’s really not worth getting-”

“What if there’s a _name_ there now? Oh my God, Nathalie! You could have had one for years! I should check for you right now, we can-”

“ _No!_ ”

Adrien stopped in his tracks, completely taken aback at this sudden burst of emotion. There was real, raw fear in Nathalie’s voice, and her eyes were wide and terrified for a moment. “Nathalie?”

Desperately, Nathalie tried to get her breathing under control. Was this what a heart attack felt like? She put a hand to her chest and focused on taking slow breaths. God, how could she have been so _stupid_ , so careless? Had she really forgotten, even for a moment, what kind of a game she was actually playing? She’d managed to compartmentalize, managed to come to terms with her own freedom being the thing at stake, but Adrien’s, God, the thought of Adrien reading that name was so horrifying it almost made Nathalie want to give up right then and there. Just turn herself over to Hawkmoth, accept his offer of lifetime imprisonment, if only it kept Adrien away from the same danger.

 _Calm down, you’re being hysterical_ , Nathalie thought to herself, annoyed. “I’m fine,” she assured the boy as she quickly composed herself. And she was. Adrien wasn’t in any danger. He would never look without her permission, and she’d never give it, so there was no problem at all. “I’ll look tonight, okay? I promise,” she lied easily, and Adrien smiled reassuringly at her.

 

* * *

 

“Are you quite alright?” Hawkmoth asked her much later, appearing in her apartment just as she was finishing dinner. He sat down across from her at her small table. “You had quite the shock earlier.”

Nathalie leaned back in her chair. “My boss’ son, Adrien,” she said, and Hawkmoth’s eyebrows raised. “We were discussing marks, and I foolishly let it slip that I haven’t checked for one in a long time. He rather eagerly volunteered to look for me.”

“I see,” Hawkmoth replied. His voice was cold. “That was foolish,” he agreed.

“I took care of it.” Nathalie took a sip of water. “You don’t have to tell me what’s at stake. I know what would happen to the boy, if he read your name.”

“You know me so well,” Hawkmoth replied, and Nathalie was surprised to hear a touch of bitterness in his tone. She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“Am I so unfair, for thinking you’re not above imprisoning the boy?” she asked. “You’re not above imprisoning me. And don’t pretend his age matters to you, because you’re certainly not above akumatizing his peers.”

“It would probably be in your best interest,” Hawkmoth replied numbly, “if you didn’t believe I was above anything at all.”

Nathalie placed her glass back on the table. “The same goes for you,” she said. “At least where Adrien is concerned. Make no mistake, imprisoned or not, if I believed you intended to harm that boy I _would_ find a way to kill you.”

“Noted.” He paused. “You care so much for the boy, for the son of your employer?”

Nathalie shrugged. “Someone has to,” she said wryly, not noticing the pained expression that flickered across her companion’s face for a fraction of a second.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Hawkmoth kissed the signature upon her back, Nathalie laughed.

“Bit of an egotist, are we?” she asked.

“You have no idea,” Hawkmoth murmured, his lips still over the spot on Nathalie’s shoulder blade where his name began.

Nathalie rolled her eyes. “I think I have _some_ idea.”

It became something of an addiction. Before he’d drop his transformation, before the lights were extinguished, Hawkmoth would remove Nathalie’s blouse, he’d kiss his way down from her neck to her back, he’d trace a gloved finger over the mark. At first it simply amused Nathalie, but it wasn’t long before she began to crave it as much as he did. Nathalie still felt no need to know the name on her back-she was far too much of a self-preservationist for that-but it gnawed just a little, that she had changed in some fundamental way she wasn’t permitted to see. Feeling Hawkmoth’s fingertip trace her mark, re-writing his name, that was the closest Nathalie came to seeing the signature for herself. She found she loved every little hint it gave her. The first letter was a big round one, an ‘O’ or something like it. He drew it fat and spent more time on it than all the letters that followed combined. The rest of them he wrote fast and skinny, with a sharp up-and-down motion, but clearly still with the utmost precision.

Hawkmoth returned to it in the dark one night, long after they’d ceased any activity save holding one another. Nathalie had almost fallen asleep-he’d begun staying until she fell asleep-when she felt the familiar tracing along her back, although this time with an ungloved hand.

“Have you memorized it, then?” she asked, her voice groggy. “Or are you just guessing, just imagining it in the dark?”

“Neither,” her soulmate replied, after a pause. “I’m looking at it. I brought a penlight.”

Nathalie snorted. “Of course you did. Next time bring something we can both enjoy, why don’t you?” He kissed her shoulder in response, murmured some apology, but Nathalie had given herself an idea, and she turned to him.

“What?”

“I want to see yours,” she said. Instantly, every muscle in Hawkmoth’s body tensed.

“No,” he said immediately.

“It’s hardly fair. You’ve seen both of them, I’m not allowed to look at mine, the least you can do is let me see yours.”

“It’s not possible,” Hawkmoth replied stiffly.

“Of course it is,” Nathalie said, impatient. “Turn over, hand me the penlight, and I’ll take this stupid blindfold off and look at it. You think I’ll recognize you from the sight of your upper back? If I’ve seen your upper back before, that makes the number of people you might be much, _much_ smaller than I’d previously assumed.”

“I think that light might accidentally stray where it oughtn’t.”

“I suppose the back of your head is terribly recognizable, is it?” Nathalie asked, rolling her eyes beneath the blindfold. “I could cover your head with a pillow if you like,” she suggested. “Then I won’t risk seeing anything I could identify. I won’t pretend that’s something I haven’t been dying to do anyway.”

Hawkmoth let out a low chuckle, then a sigh, and a few seconds later Nathalie felt the penlight pressed into her hand. Hawkmoth rolled over, and she placed the pillow over his head before pushing up the silk around her eyes. The penlight gave off a very weak light, but it was enough to make out the mark if Nathalie held it right up to the man’s back.

_Nathalie Sancoeur_

For better or worse, the universe had marked this man as hers. The sight wasn’t exactly the turn-on for Nathalie that it obviously was for her soulmate, but she’d be lying if she said she completely failed to see the appeal.

Gingerly, Nathalie traced a finger over the letter ‘N’, and beneath her fingertip Hawkmoth shuddered.

 

* * *

 

The problem was, there were parts of Nathalie’s brain she couldn’t turn off. Her emotions, yes, those she could banish as she pleased. Her entire life, she’d figured that was more than enough. She’d figured that was the only part of herself that might get her into trouble. It never occurred to her to worry about her analytical mind.

 _What if I just walked right into that police station over there_ , she thought to herself one afternoon, in the middle of running errands, _and announced that Hawkmoth’s identity was written on my back? He wouldn’t sense it, not if I did it from a purely rational frame of mind._

Or, _What if I just took my shirt off right here, in the middle of this crowded sidewalk? What if I shouted for the world to hear that it was a supervillain’s name on my back? There’s always somebody ready to film whatever happens in this city, always somebody ready with a smartphone, eager to document the next akuma attack. Even if Hawkmoth showed up in five seconds, he would be too late._

_What if I took a trip? His range can’t be infinite, after all. What if I just picked a direction and kept driving, what then. What then._

But Nathalie didn’t do any of those things. She just kept on living her life, feeling a little more guilty with each new akuma that terrorized the city, until Hawkmoth finally commented on it.

“You know I feel everything you feel,” he reminded her one evening. “I’m not used to feeling guilt during an attack, even via proxy.”

“So stop attacking,” Nathalie replied.

“Oh, don’t worry. It should be irritating, I’ll grant, but somehow I find it oddly charming.” And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and she forgot for a little while, what it was that she was doing, what game she was playing.

She always remembered in the morning, though.

 

* * *

 

The attacks did slow down, Nathalie had to admit. Three to four times a week became twice a week, then once a week. Nathalie couldn't tell if her guilt was actually getting through to the villain, or if he did it out of some concern for her mental health, or fear that her conscience would finally snap if he kept on at his former pace. Or maybe it was none of those things, maybe he was just distracted by whatever it was that they had. Maybe whatever it was inside of him that drove him to akumatize in the first place was changing.

“Why?” she asked him one night, handing him the glass of wine she’d already poured in anticipation of his arrival. He understood her meaning immediately.

“That's the million euro question, isn't it?” he replied.

“You're forgetting I work for one of the richest men in Europe,” Nathalie said. “I deal with million euro questions on an hourly basis.”

Hawkmoth laughed. “I suppose I did forget that, yes.”

“Really, though. Why? Is it just power for its own sake, or is there something more to it?” Hawkmoth didn't respond. “Oh, come on. It can't be that embarrassing. I'm your soulmate, I'm sure I'll be perfectly understanding. I'll hardly roll my eyes at all. Unless it's angst over a tragically murdered wife, then I might have to roll my eyes.”

“No,” Hawkmoth replied calmly, “it's not that. My wife is very much still alive.”

To his surprise, Nathalie immediately began laughing. She had put her own glass down, had to lean against her kitchen countertop for support, and she didn't stop for a good minute or so. “Of course you're married,” she finally said. “Why wouldn't you be? What on earth does she think of your second life as a supervillain? Or our little arrangement?”

“I’ll be sure to ask her,” Hawkmoth replied, “if I ever see her again.”

Nathalie sobered. “Ah,” she said. She glanced at the villain. He didn't seem particularly grieved at this reveal. It wasn’t as simple as wanting the woman back, Nathalie was sure of that, but she had a feeling she’d hit upon the outer layer of the mystery that was Hawkmoth. Nathalie gave up her line of questioning, not wanting to press her luck.

 

* * *

 

The beginning of the end came unexpectedly, and with little fanfare.

Nathalie was by herself. Ostensibly she was running an errand, but Mr. Agreste was more demanding than usual that day, so Nathalie was taking her time completing her task before heading back to the mansion. She was slowly making her way through a department store, headed for the exit, when a blouse caught her eye.

It was nothing like Nathalie ever wore. Loose and draping and clearly dreadfully expensive, the red chiffon dropped low in the front and even lower in the back. Nathalie marveled that it stayed on the mannequin at all, that the light breeze created by the people walking by didn’t blow it right off. Nathalie grabbed one off the nearby rack and held it up. It was the kind of blouse a very certain kind of woman wore, Nathalie felt. The kind of woman who had both wealth and a soulmate, and who felt secure in neither. At least, that was how Nathalie had felt before getting a mark of her own. Now, though, well…

Nathalie knew she could never wear such a thing around others, but she let herself imagine wearing it at home. Imagine the look on her lover’s face when he appeared suddenly and saw her in it, when he believed for a split second she might have been wearing it in public where anyone could see. Nathalie grinned to herself, imagining the heart attack that would give him. God, wouldn’t that serve him right? Maybe he’d drop dead right there, and Nathalie would get a medal for defeating him. But more likely he’d just realize she was teasing him, of course. And he’d be angry, he’d be consumed with a need to tease her right back somehow-

“May I put that in a dressing room for you, Mademoiselle?” a saleswoman asked Nathalie, reaching for the blouse. “There’s no need to carry it around with you while you’re making other selections.”

“Hmm?” Nathalie said, snapping out of her daydream. “Oh… oh, no, I won’t be looking around, thank you.”

“Just trying this on, then? Very well, I’ll show you to-”

“I’m not trying anything on,” Nathalie interrupted. The young woman frowned.

“I couldn’t let you buy this without trying it on first,” she said apologetically, “the size runs a bit irregular, and I’m afraid we have a no-return policy-”

“That’s fine, I won’t be purchasing it.” Before the poor woman could protest, Nathalie had abruptly handed her the blouse, turned around, and began walking brusquely towards the exit.

Once outside, Nathalie took a slightly shaky breath and let it out. It had taken her a second to remember why she couldn’t be in dressing rooms anymore, with their mirrors on every wall and their prying assistants, and that was a second too long, she felt. Once again, Nathalie had gotten distracted, careless, and almost endangered the freedom of another person. Nathalie leaned against the outside of the building and thought to herself for a few minutes. Considered, hard, where she was in life, and where she wanted to be. Where she’d been trying to get, and where she’d actually gotten. Nathalie made up her mind and continued walking.

 

* * *

 

Nathalie Sancoeur bought a stopwatch. As suicide attempts went, it was at least an original beginning.

Nathalie brought it home, only glancing over her shoulder once or twice as she did so. She took the thing out of its wrapping and verified that it was working. She sat on her bed, took a deep breath, and pressed the START button.

Then Nathalie began to think about how much she wanted to look at the name on her back. How much she was dying to know. She dove headfirst into the curiosity she’d spent a decade stamping out. It was almost dizzying, allowing those feelings, pushing herself to have them, after so long. She let that curiosity wash over her entire body.

“What do you think you’re-” Hawkmoth appeared out of thin air, as Nathalie had been expecting, and stopped mid-sentence, cut off by the loud and insistent beep of the stopwatch.

“Twenty-four seconds,” Nathalie reported, her emotions once more in check.

“What…” Hawkmoth furrowed his brow, confused for a moment before he realized what had just happened. “Were you _testing_ me?”

“Your response time, yes. It is, I hope you realize, woefully inadequate. Twenty-four seconds is more than enough time to-”

Hawkmoth snatched the stopwatch out of Nathalie’s hand and crushed it in his fist before tossing the broken pieces of it to the floor. “What. Were. You. _Thinking_?” he demanded. “Don’t you ever, _ever_ do anything like-”

“I’m tired,” Nathalie interrupted. Her voice was soft, her emotions as muted as ever, but there was a weariness that Hawkmoth noticed, that he suddenly realized had already been there for quite some time now.

“Of… of this?” he asked. “Of us?”

“Yes. Aren’t you? We started a relationship in the middle of a standoff. We tell ourselves that we’re keeping each other in check, but we aren’t. If you suddenly decide to lock me up forever, I can’t see it coming fast enough to stop it. If I decide to go to the police, you can’t see that coming fast enough either. It’s just a question of who pulls the trigger first, isn’t it?”

Hawkmoth sat down next to her, considering this for a while. “I doubt this will surprise you,” he finally said, “but there are a great many fictions I tell myself in order to live the life I want. Can’t we keep telling ourselves this one?”

Nathalie shook her head. “I feel as though I’m dancing at the edge of a cliff,” she whispered, “and the longer I’m with you, the harder it is to remember why it would be a bad idea to fall.”

“I see.” They sat in silence for a while.

“Why did you even approach me?” Nathalie asked. “Why not just ignore it? Why take the risk to begin with?”

Instead of answering, Hawkmoth stood. “I’ll go,” he said. “I won’t come back.”

“Thank you.”

Gently, Hawkmoth reached down and took Nathalie’s hand in his own. Lifting it up, he kissed the back of her hand.

And then he was gone.

 

* * *

 

That should have been the end of it.

It might have been the end of it, too, if Nathalie had been slightly less observant.

“Your schedule for the day, sir,” Nathalie said as she entered her boss’ office two weeks later, handing Mr. Agreste her tablet just as she did every morning. He’d been watching the latest finance report on television, and he left it on as he looked over the schedule. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow.

“Where’s the conference call with our fabric suppliers? It was set for this afternoon the last time I checked.”

“Had to be moved to tomorrow, sir. They’re dealing with a sudden crisis at one of the factories. I did inform you yesterday, sir.”

“Very well. You have the overview of the latest senior designs for the eveningwear line?”

“Right here, sir,” Nathalie said, handing over the folder in question along with his preferred red pen. She stood next to him patiently as he began flipping through it, making occasional marks and notes as he went.

The finance report ended a few minutes later, and a news segment on the latest akuma attack began. Nathalie had already seen an earlier report on it last night, it wasn't news to her, but she felt a tightness in her chest, a sudden fierce longing. Mr. Agreste’s gaze flickered toward her for a moment, the briefest flash of concern. Nathalie mentally shook herself off, careful not to give any outward sign of her inner life. She'd gotten herself back on track, hadn't that been her goal all along? To have her normal life again, to forget about soulmates and supervillains? Maybe her life was small, maybe it wouldn't have been fulfilling to some people, sure, but Nathalie liked it, and…

And…

And Mr. Agreste had looked at her.

Gabriel Agreste, of all people, had just looked at her with pity in his eyes.

And that was damning enough, really, wasn’t it?

But if it wasn't, there was the clear fact that he'd done it in response to absolutely no stimuli save for Nathalie’s private emotional state.

A cold terror gripped Nathalie’s heart all of a sudden. And it deepened as she realized _he could sense that, too_ , by now he'd realized his mistake, he was still looking at the overview like nothing had happened but _he knew that she knew_. Any moment now he was going to stop pretending, he was going to realize that Nathalie was not fooled, was not telling herself she was imagining things, was not talking herself out of the conclusion she’d reached.

In less than a second, Nathalie’s mind raced through all her options and picked the best one. She'd grown accustomed, after all, to being in the company of an empath. She'd put herself in the habit of acting before she had time to emotionally register the decision, to prevent him from seeing it coming.

Nathalie Sancoeur punched Gabriel Agreste in the face as hard as she could, and then she whirled around and ran for her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Nathalie might have made it outside, if the mansion hadn’t been quite so enormous. Or she might have made it to another living soul, if it hadn’t been quite so abandoned. But as it was, she didn’t quite reach the front door before she felt a gloved hand close around her wrist, and saw the world around her drop away.

Nathalie had been expecting to be transported to the dimly lit lair Hawkmoth had originally taken her to, all those months ago, so the unexpected brightness of their true destination blinded her momentarily. Blinking, she wrenched her wrist out of Hawkmoth’s grasp without bothering to look back at him. “Why did you bring us to my apartment, of all places?” she asked.

“I thought we should discuss the matter privately.”

“Yes, I gathered,” Nathalie said impatiently. “Why here? Why not in the little lair where I’m to live out the remainder of my days?”

Hawkmoth sighed. “Don’t be hysterical.” Without turning around, Nathalie could sense him wince, just a little, at the sheer intensity of the rage this comment had produced in her. Without another word, Nathalie began storming towards the mirror in her hallway, the mirror she’d been forced to use ever since Hawkmoth had stolen the one in her bathroom. She pulled her blouse off as she went, and tossed it to the floor in her rush. She spun around as she reached the mirror and finally read the name on her back, the name that had given her so much trouble.

_Gabriel Agreste_

Nathalie had looked at that signature every day for the past five years. Hell, she’d stamped it on documents herself more days than not. It was in every catalogue, at the corner of every photo spread. It was one of the most recognizable signatures in the city.

Nathalie continued to face the mirror as Hawkmoth approached, but she met his gaze in the reflection. “Drop the transformation,” she said. He raised an eyebrow.

“Why?” he asked. “You know who I am.”

“Because I’d like very much to punch you in the face again,” she said calmly, “and I don’t need your superhuman reflexes getting in the way of that.”

Hawkmoth stared at her silently for a moment. “I don’t think I will,” he finally said. “The transformation temporarily heals injuries. As a civilian, I believe you may have broken my nose. It’s quite uncomfortable.”

“Good.” Nathalie finally tore her eyes away from the soulmark and turned to face Hawkmoth. “Well? What now? Do I at least get to say goodbye to my parents first? Or Adrien? No, I suppose you’re too paranoid to allow that, you’d think I was trying to convey a secret message. Which I would be, of course, but all the same-”

“I have no intention,” Hawkmoth interrupted, “of keeping you anywhere.”

Nathalie’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” she asked, skeptical. “When, pray tell, did this change of heart come about?”

“Never. It was an empty threat from the start.”

“You-” Nathalie had difficulty forming her words coherently, “you-do you have any idea how terrified I’ve been? For _months_? And it was all for nothing?”

“It was not for nothing,” Hawkmoth replied. “Our relationship would not have been at all possible without it. I found it to be a very convenient fear.”

“Until it broke your nose,” Nathalie snapped. Hawkmoth considered this, then nodded, conceding the point.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Until then.”

Sighing, Nathalie headed for her kitchen, brushing impatiently past Hawkmoth as she did so, and immediately began to pour herself a glass of wine. She downed the glass in a matter of seconds and immediately began to pour herself another. “Oh, how rude of me,” she said sarcastically, “did you want one as well?”

“It’s eight in the morning.”

Nathalie scoffed. “Yes, if it wasn’t for this I’d be the picture of mental health.” She finished off her second glass before continuing to speak. “So if we’re not here to discuss my captivity, what _do_ you want to talk about?”

“I… thought you might require some kind of explanation. In order to be prevented from going to the police and-”

“The police?” Nathalie let out a humorless laugh. “I could have gone to the police months ago, and I haven’t done it yet. Why on earth would you being Gabriel Agreste make me _more_ likely to approach them? As though I wouldn’t have to deal with enough suspicion already, being your soulmate. Being your personal assistant on top of that? Everyone in this city would be one hundred percent convinced I was your willing accomplice in it all. No, thank you.”

Hawkmoth looked as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “So… that’s it? You don’t require anything at all for your silence?”

“Not a damn thing.” She paused. “Although I’ll take that explanation you just offered, I suppose.”

“If it’s not necessary, I’d rather not-” Nathalie cut him off with a glare, and Hawkmoth sighed in defeat. “Very well. When Evelyn left-”

Nathalie groaned. “Do _not_ tell me everything you’ve done has been to get that woman back.”

“Not for myself,” Hawkmoth said defensively. “For Adrien.”

Nathalie stared at her soulmate for a moment, dumbfounded. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and deadly. “When Adrien _inevitably_ finds out that you are Hawkmoth,” she said slowly, “don’t you _dare_ tell him that, do you understand me? That boy has enough to deal with, he doesn’t need you putting that kind of guilt on his shoulders.”

“Adrien will not find out,” Hawkmoth began, and Nathalie snorted, “and I don’t see why he should feel guilty-”

“Neither do I,” Nathalie interrupted, “but if you knew anything about him at all you’d know he’d feel it all the same, whether it makes sense or not.”

Hawkmoth raised an eyebrow. “It has clearly not escaped your notice,” he said, “that as a father, I am… lacking. I am not equipped to give that boy what he needs. I am, however, equipped to get back the woman who can.”

“Let me get this straight,” Nathalie said. “You’re doing all this because you think it’s the easiest way to be a good father?”

“It is the only way,” Hawkmoth replied. “I’ve tried the police, I’ve tried private investigators. Everything else has failed. Evelyn had access to a world of magic you can only begin to imagine, she will not be found by less extreme measures.” Hawkmoth noticed the look of incredulity that Nathalie was giving him. “What? You have a better idea?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I do. Instead of a year of magical terrorism, why not try… oh, I don’t know… going to a _fucking_ fencing tournament once in awhile? Or a piano recital, or a parent-teacher conference, or, God, anything? Just _show up for your son_ , Gabriel!”

“I wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know what to do. Evelyn was the one who-”

“Say nothing, look uncomfortable, unwittingly insult half the people there, leave early. I promise you, the bar is now that low.” Nathalie groaned. “I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out earlier. Of course, of _course_ the two biggest human disasters in Paris are the same person. It’s so obvious now.”

“I-”

“I think you’d better leave this apartment,” Nathalie said, cutting him off impatiently. “Now.”

Hawkmoth looked as though he wanted to protest, but after a moment he simply sighed and vanished.

 

* * *

 

Nathalie showed up at work the next day, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She did get more than a little satisfaction at seeing the look of shock on Gabriel’s face, at least. The bandage over his still broken nose helped, too.

“Nathalie!” Gabriel said, shocked, jumping up from his desk when she entered the next morning as though nothing were different. “You-I didn’t expect-”

“I am a professional, sir,” Nathalie interrupted, injecting only the slightest bit of sarcasm into the honorific. “I assure you, should I decide to stop working for you, you will receive more than adequate notice, and I will be sure to train up any replacement you hire before departing.”

“I see.” He sat back down. “And… are you… that is, is this your notice that-”

“Not yet. I haven’t quite decided yet, what it is I’d like my life to look like now, after everything.” She picked up her tablet. “In the meantime, you have a call scheduled for nine-thirty.”

 

* * *

 

A week later, Nathalie had just packed up for the day and was putting on her coat when Gabriel appeared at the door of the office. He’d been avoiding her as much as possible-which, admittedly, was not much considering how closely they were required to work together-and Nathalie had not expected to see him before leaving. “Yes?”

Gabriel took a deep breath, as though to brace himself, and then walked decisively over to Nathalie. He pulled out a small black box and placed it on the desk next to her. “Here,” he said.

Nathalie stared at the box for a moment, then looked at her boss. “If that’s an engagement ring,” she said, “then your grasp on reality is far, far weaker than I’d previously estimated. And that, I assure you, would be quite the feat.”

Gabriel scowled. “It is not-just open it.”

Nathalie picked up the box, opened it, and stared at its contents for a good minute. “Is this what I think it is?” she finally asked in a whisper.

“It is.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

“Whatever you like. Use it to become a hero. Use it to become a villain. Throw it into the deepest part of the ocean, sell it to the highest bidder, return it to its rightful Guardian. It makes absolutely no difference to me whatsoever.” He took a breath. “It is clear,” he said, “that your recent bout of indecision is due in part to what I must confess is a very healthy, rational fear of my abilities so long as I possess that thing. I thought I’d make your decision easier by removing that part of the equation.”

Nathalie continued to stare at the Miraculous. “It’s that easy for you to give up this power? It scares me, so it’s gone? It scared me from the start, you know.”

“I do. At the start it was possible to have both you and it, so I did. And it is not, as you suggest, easy to give it up now. But it is clear that both is no longer an option. I’d rather have you.”

“You won’t get this back if I decide to leave. You might wind up with neither.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I’m taking a calculated risk. I believe it to be an intelligent one. Goodnight, Nathalie.” Without waiting for her response, Gabriel left the office. Nathalie stared at the spot where he’d been for a moment, and then looked back at the Miraculous. She knew she should get it out of the house as quickly as possible. That she should hide it, get it away from Gabriel Agreste before had a change of heart and tried to get it back. But instead, after a few more moments of deliberation, Nathalie snapped the box shut and dropped it unceremoniously in her purse before leaving it behind in the office.

She caught up to Gabriel just as he was reaching the door of his bedroom. He turned towards her, surprised, as the sound of her heels echoed down the hall, but before he could say anything she'd reached him, pushed him through the doorway, and followed after.

“Just to be clear,” Nathalie said, shutting the door firmly behind her, “I still haven't made up my mind. You put me through a very particular kind of hell, Gabriel Agreste, and I'm not the forgiving type.”

Gabriel nodded. “I understand that.”

“Good.” Closing the distance between them in a few steps, Nathalie grabbed Gabriel’s tie and pulled him into a kiss. It took him a moment to recover from his shock, but then he was kissing her back. Her hand still firmly grasping his tie, Nathalie pulled away before biting his earlobe.

“Why…” Gabriel couldn't seem to finish the question, but Nathalie understood immediately.

“Because,” she whispered into his ear, “before I close the door on this, before I banish you from my life forever, for once we are going to do this with the goddamn lights on.”

 

* * *

 

Nathalie took a moment to brace herself before knocking on the door at the address she’d been given. When the door finally opened, she had to drop her gaze half a meter to meet the man’s eyes.

“Yes?”

“Here.” Nathalie shoved the box in his face. “I was told this belonged with you.” She turned around and began to quickly walk away. A few steps later she heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Miss! Miss!” Sighing, Nathalie turned around. “Where… how did you…” The man took a moment to recover from his shock. “Please, come in. I’ll make tea. We should discuss this.”

Nathalie opened her mouth to reject the man’s invitation, but something in his eyes stopped her. She was overwhelmed, suddenly, with a desperate need to talk to someone who knew something, anything, who might be able to give her some kind of answers. “All right.”

Ten minutes later, Nathalie was comfortably seated at a kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a mug, taking in its warmth. The man, who’d introduced himself simply as Fu, sat across from her.

“Would you mind telling me how you acquired this?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” Nathalie replied.

“I have time.”

Nathalie took a sip of tea. “It’s a personal story,” she amended.

“I see.” Fu glanced at the box. “Did Hawkmoth surrender it willingly to you?”

“He did. He gave me this address as well.”

“Really?” Fu frowned. “Who is he?” Nathalie raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me, I wasn’t planning to ask, it’s just-I lost this Miraculous over a hundred years ago. I spent many decades trying to recover it, and I failed. It is something of a mystery, how it wound up in the hands of a man who knows my address, a man who would use it to terrorize Paris for a year before abruptly returning it to my keeping.” Nathalie hesitated. “I won’t expose him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s Gabriel Agreste.”

“Ah,” Fu said slowly, understanding dawning. “Of course. Evelyn’s husband. That explains quite a bit.”

Nathalie blinked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him identified in that way. Usually it was the other way around.”

“Evelyn was quite remarkable,” Fu said, “but few people knew it.”

“You knew her?”

“My last protégée. The one mistake I ever made. She had everything necessary to become a great Miraculous wielder, but I didn’t realize until it was too late that it wouldn’t be enough for her.”

Nathalie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Nothing was ever enough for that woman,” she muttered. Fu nodded.

“Yes,” he agreed, “I’m afraid that’s so.” He looked again at the box. “So Evelyn’s husband learned enough from her to track down the Butterfly Miraculous,” he said slowly, piecing everything together, “and I suppose he thought to use it to gain the major Miraculouses, to find her and bring her back. But now,” Fu looked back at Nathalie, “he has you instead?”

Nathalie tapped her fingernails against the mug. “I don’t know,” she finally said.

“I see.” Fu considered this silently. “Well, either way, you have done Paris a great service. I hope you are proud of that.”

Nathalie shrugged. “It’s over, that’s all I care about. Was there anything else you wanted to know?”

Fu shook his head. “No, I believe you have answered all my questions. You?”

Again Nathalie hesitated. “You… you’ve been alive for a long time, I suppose? You said you lost that thing over a hundred years ago.”

“I did. And I was eighty-seven at the time.”

“Right. Well… in that time… what have you learned about soulmarks?”

Fu’s eyes widened. “I see,” he said. “My goodness. That must be quite difficult for you.”

Nathalie’s cheeks turned slightly pink. “I’ll live,” she said. “Do you know anything about them? Why they show up when they do, or… or anything? Because a part of me would like nothing more than to believe the universe simply wanted to stop a villain, that it had nothing to do with me, really. Do you think that’s likely?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Fu replied. “I have seen many soulmarks. It’s true that, occasionally, their appearance has some significant external consequences. But all the same, they are always personal.” He paused. “Nobody really _knows_ anything about them, of course,” he said. “Not even me. We all have our theories. Perhaps mine are closer to the truth than others. I’ll share them with you and let you decide for yourself.” He took a breath. “In my experience, the marks do not necessarily correspond with the _best_ matches. The happiest, easiest relationships I have ever observed were not soulmarked. No. In my experience, the marks tend to reveal themselves to people who need, shall we say, an extra little push towards happiness. What people do in response to that push is, of course, still up to them.”

Nathalie scoffed. “I don’t like being pushed,” she said. “And whatever this damn thing was pushing me towards, I’m not sure I’d call it _happiness_.”

“Well,” Fu took a sip of tea, “perhaps it could be. It is your decision.”

 

* * *

 

Nathalie had the next day off, so Gabriel was surprised when she appeared at the door of his office that evening, still wearing her coat and scarf, her cheeks red from the cold night air. Slowly he put his pen down. “Have you made a decision?” he asked. Nathalie just barely caught the note of hope catching in his throat.

Nathalie began to remove her scarf. “I have,” she said. Instead of saying anything more, though, she slowly began unbuttoning her coat.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Miss Sancoeur, I don’t know that I-” This time, as Gabriel caught sight of Nathalie’s red blouse, the catch in his throat was all too easy to hear. Nathalie made sure to turn her back to Gabriel, her soulmark clearly visible, as she carefully placed her coat on the small sofa before she faced him. “That… I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you wear such a thing, Miss Sancoeur.”

“Oh, I bought it earlier today,” Nathalie informed him, walking up to his desk. “Do you like it? It’s not really me, is it?”

Gabriel cleared his throat. “You and it are, I would say, a dangerous combination.”

Nathalie smiled. “A dangerous combination. I believe I’ve been a half of one of those before.”

Gabriel stood and quickly came around to the other side of the desk. “Please, Nathalie,” he said softly, “tell me what you’ve decided. Are you quitting or not?”

“Of course I’m quitting,” Nathalie said, and Gabriel’s face fell ever so slightly. “I can’t keep working for you. It would be an HR nightmare.”

Gabriel furrowed his brow. “Do you mean to say-”

“I mean to say,” Nathalie interrupted, “that… well, I’ve been doing some thinking, and perhaps stubbornly ignoring a mark is just as much a way of letting it control my life as blindly accepting it would be.”

“I see.”

“I won’t promise you forever.”

Gabriel reached for her, put a hand on her shoulder and caressed it with his thumb. “I would never dream of asking it of you.”

Nathalie nodded slowly, then looked up into her soulmate’s eyes, one eyebrow raised. “You’re a disaster without me,” she said. “If I left you now, everything would be on fire in a week.”

Gabriel smiled softly. “You’re probably right.”

Nathalie took a step closer. “If I’m being perfectly honest,” she said, “I don’t think we’ve been particularly good for each other, these past few months. But I think we could be, maybe. I’d like to find out, anyway.”

Gabriel nodded, then slowly moved his hand from Nathalie’s shoulder to the nape of her neck. She went up on her toes, placing her hands on Gabriel’s shoulders for balance as he pulled her up, and she kissed him.

Nathalie Sancoeur had never wanted a soulmate. She’d never wanted a crazy romance, she’d never wanted to save a city, redeem a villain. She was a wholly practical woman who’d long ago banished unpractical desires. But part of being practical meant seizing opportunity when it was handed to her, even if was just an opportunity for her own personal happiness.

Right now, Nathalie Sancoeur was happy.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Written in the skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909362) by [asvlm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asvlm/pseuds/asvlm)
  * [Luna Moth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15609702) by [Anthemyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthemyst/pseuds/Anthemyst)




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